On Monday, we reported that EZ Texting, a New York based marketing firm, was suing wireless carrier T-Mobile for censoring text messages promoting medical marijuana. Now T-Mobile has responded to the allegations, and they are unrepentant.

According to T-Mobile, as a wireless carrier, they have a right to pick and choose which text messages they deliver on their message. As they told a Federal Judge on Wednesday, T-Mobile “has discretion to require pre-approval for any short-code marketing campaigns run on its network, and to enforce its guidelines by terminating programs for which a content provider failed to obtain the necessary approval.”

Why do they require that approval? “To protect the carrier and its customers from potentially illegal, fraudulent, or offensive marketing campaigns conducted on its network.”

This is the first federal case really testing whether or not wireless providers can block messages they don’t like, but it’s worth nothing that traditional telecoms are bound by a “must carry” obligation.

Here at Geek, we’re troubled by this case and its potential outcomes. There’s a reason landline telecoms are bound by the “must carry” clause: it is simply absurd that a communications company should have power over what customers say to one another on their network. By claiming the right to block “offensive” communications, T-Mobile is asking for legal carte blanche to censor their own subscribers, even if they don’t avail themselves of that right. Let’s hope their argument gets shut down hard.

Reader Comments

Ron

Not only the “must carry” but also the “common carrier” rules.

If person A makes an obscene phone call to person B, person B cannot sue the phone company. This rule was put in place because the phonen company claimed that it couldn’t monitor all calls to prevent this from happening.

It T-Mobile can sensor messages it deems inappropriate, then they take responsibility for any inappropriate messages that get through – since they are showing that they CAN prevent inappropriate messages.

hodar

” as a wireless carrier, they have a right to pick and choose which text messages they deliver ”

Then, do I have a right to tell them which messages I chose to pay for? Sorry, it seems that THEY work for me. If I make an obscene or illegal message – then I alone am responsible.

Personally, I’d love to see Ron’s suggestion come true. Receive an offensive text from a friend; then sue the living snot out of T-Mobile for allowing that text through.

http://geek.com Jeffery Johnson

I think you missing the big picture here. What this is really about is a maketing company wanting to be able to send it ads to all people via text messages. The marketing company would like everyone to think this is about freedom of speech. But what it is really about is trying to get spam texting allowed. I’m on T-Mobiles side on this one.

Derek

I agree with Jeffery. I don’t text much, so I don’t have a “text plan” on my mobile. I was, therefore, quite angry one fine month when I received several hundred texts trying to convince me to buy stock XYZ (a “strong buy”) and to enlarge various body parts. The bill? At 5 cents a text, you do the math. If I only paid for texts I sent, that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but with no plan I have to pay for INCOMING texts as well. All for text that I had not solicited (the phone was only a couple months old at the time, and not even all my friends had the number, let alone anyone else) text clogging up my phone and I was PAYING for the privilege. T-Mobile gave me a month of texting to cover most of the charges, then I had to have them block texts coming in from the (default “on”) email-to-text system that came (comes?) with all their phones.

If this was a case of T-Mobile blocking a CUSTOMER from texting another CUSTOMER with a PRIVATE message containing “offensive” language, I’d be up in arms about freedom of speech issues. As it is, this just looks like a sleazy marketing company moving towards their final goal of a world composed entirely of advertisements. Block on, T-Mobile!

The only thing “troubling” about this case is that people are so ready to defend a marketing firm’s “right” to bombard them with trashy ads — which many of us will have to pay for in cold, hard cash.